"Mudpots bubble and steam near the Salton Buttes lava domes, a volcanic area at the southeastern end of the Salton Sea, California." Image credit: Deborah Bergfeld, USGS.
Critical minerals, such as copper, cobalt, and silicon, are vital for energy technologies, but most critical minerals markets are less transparent than mature energy markets, such as crude oil or coal. Like other energy markets, many supply-side and demand-side factors influence pricing for these energy-relevant critical minerals, but critical minerals supply chains contain … [continued]
The electric vehicle revolution is genuinely in full swing, with almost one out of every 4 new vehicles having a plug in 2024. The core element of that revolution is the batteries, and the essence of those batteries is a handful of metals. So, the most critical conundrum is how … [continued]
Today, the Commission presents an Action Plan on Critical Raw Materials, the 2020 List of Critical Raw Materials and a foresight study on critical raw materials for strategic technologies and sectors from the 2030 and 2050 perspectives.
The rise of the electric vehicle market over the next decade or two will impact the platinum market significantly, according to a new report from Bloomberg. As the auto industry is the largest user of platinum worldwide — owing to its inclusion in vehicle exhaust systems (used to strip emissions … [continued]
We’re seeing bath salts in the news again. This time, the alternative use of the product has a benign purpose, unlike a couple of years ago, when people associated it with designer drugs. In fact, according to an article last week in the journal Nature, a chemical typically found in … [continued]
The brilliant PR machine of Tesla Motors was on display again last week, when chief technology officer JB Straubel predicted a five-minute charge in the company’s future. That’s all well and good, whenever it happens, but meanwhile fuel cell electric vehicles already offer a super quick, minutes-long charging cycle. So, … [continued]
Here’s another article on a recent university study I recently ran across that could help the progress of cleantech — in this case, fuel-cell technology. The article is reposted from Brown University’s newsroom. Chemists at Brown University have created a triple-headed metallic nanoparticle that reportedly performs better and lasts … [continued]
Researchers at a Finnish university have come up with a means of significantly reducing the cost of manufacturing fuel cells. Using atomic layer deposition (ALD), the team’s new method doesn’t require expensive platinum, and requires less than half the amount of catalyst currently used methods require.
A new fuel cell being developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is set to take households a giant step closer to energy independence. MIT researchers envision an integrated system consisting of a solar installation and a fuel cell. During the day, the solar array produces electricity to power the … [continued]
Daniel Nocera’s Sun Catalytix was one of the 37 ARPA-E awardees last month with a $4.1 million vote of confidence from the Nobel prizewinner-driven Department of Energy. Now Polaris Venture Partners has just added $1 million to its earlier $2 million investment in the MIT spin-off to bring their total … [continued]
